The Ghost - Arnold Bennett (top 10 books to read .TXT) 📗

the beat of her engines stopped. She hailed us. We waited for the answering call from our own captain, but there was no reply. Twice again she hailed us, and was answered only by silence.

"Why don't our people reply?" an old lady asked, who came up to me at that moment, breathing heavily.

"Because they are d—— d fools," I said roughly. She was a most respectable and prim old lady; yet I could not resist shocking her ears by an impropriety.

The other ship moved away into the night.

Was I in a dream? Was this a pantomime shipwreck? Then it occurred to me that the captain was so sure of being ultimately able to help himself that he preferred from motives of economy to decline assistance which would involve a heavy salvage claim.

My self-possessed young man came along again in the course of his peregrinations, the girl whom he called Lottie still on his arm. He stopped for a chat.

"Most curious thing!" he began.

"What now?"

"Well, I found out about the collision."

"How did it occur?"

"In this way. The captain was on duty on the bridge, with the steersman at the wheel. It was thickish weather then, much thicker than it is now—in fact, there'll soon be no breeze left, and look at the stars! Suddenly the lookout man shouted that there was a sail on the weather bow, and it must have been pretty close, too. The captain ordered the man at the wheel to put the boat to port—I don't know the exact phraseology of the thing—so that we could pass the other ship on our starboard side. Instead of doing that, the triple idiot shoved us to starboard as hard as he could, and before the captain could do anything, we were struck on the port paddle. The steersman had sent us right into the other ship. If he had wanted specially to land us into a good smash-up, he could scarcely have done it better. A good thing we got caught on the paddle; otherwise we should have been cut clean in two. As it was, the other boat recoiled and fell away."

"Was she damaged?"

"Probably not."

"How does the man at the wheel explain his action?"

"Well, that's the curious part. I was just coming to that. Naturally he's in a great state of terror just now, but he can just talk. He swears that when the captain gave his order a third person ran up the steps leading to the bridge, and so frightened him that he was sort of dazed, and did exactly the wrong thing."

"A queer tale!"

"I should think so. But he sticks to it. He even says that this highly mysterious third person made him do the wrong thing. But that's absolute tommy-rot."

"The man must be mad."

"I should have said he had been drunk, but there doesn't seem to be any trace of that. Anyhow, he sees visions, and I maintain that the Chatham and Dover people oughtn't to have their boats steered by men who see visions, eh?"

"I agree with you. I suppose we aren't now in any real danger?"

"I should hardly think so. We might have been. It was pure luck that we happened to get struck on the paddle-box, and also it was pure luck that the sea has gone down so rapidly. With a list like this, a really lively cross-sea would soon have settled us."

We were silent for a few moments. The girl looked idly round the ship, and her eyes encountered the figure of the mysterious man. She seemed to shiver.

"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "what a terrible face that man has!"

"Where?" said her friend.

"Over there. And how is it he's wearing a silk hat—here?"

His glance followed hers, but my follower had turned abruptly round, and in a moment was moving quickly to the after-part of the ship. He passed behind the smoke-stack, and was lost to our view.

"The back of him looks pretty stiff," the young man said. "I wonder if he's the chap that alarmed the man at the wheel."

I laughed, and at the same time I accidentally dropped Rosa's jewel-case, which had never left my hand. I picked it up hurriedly.

"You seem attached to that case," the young man said, smiling. "If we had foundered, should you have let it go, or tried to swim ashore with it?"

"The question is doubtful," I replied, returning his smile. In shipwrecks one soon becomes intimate with strangers.

"If I mistake not, it is a jewel-case."

"It is a jewel-case."

He nodded with a moralizing air, as if reflecting upon the sordid love of property which will make a man carry a jewel-case about with him when the next moment he might find himself in the sea. At least, that was my interpretation of the nodding. Then the brother and sister—for such I afterwards discovered they were—left me to take care of my jewel-case alone.

Why had I dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in compelling, by his strange influences, the innocent sailor to guide the ship towards destruction—the ship in which I happened to be a passenger?... And then there was the railway accident. The stoker had said that the engine-driver had been dazed—like the steersman. But no. There are avenues of conjecture from which the mind shrinks. I could not follow up that train of thought.

Happily, I did not see my enemy again—at least, during that journey. And my mind was diverted, for the dawn came—the beautiful September dawn. Never have I greeted the sun with deeper joy, and I fancy that my sentiments were shared by everyone on board the vessel. As the light spread over the leaden waters, and the coast of France was silhouetted against the sky, the passengers seemed to understand that danger was over, and that we had been through peril, and escaped. Some threw themselves upon their knees, and prayed with an ecstasy of thankfulness. Others re-commenced their hymning. Others laughed rather hysterically, and began to talk at a prodigious rate. A few, like myself, stood silent and apparently unmoved.

Then the engines began to beat. There was a frightful clatter of scrap-iron and wood in the port paddle-box, and they stopped immediately, whereupon we noticed that the list of the vessel was somewhat more marked than before. The remainder of the port paddle had, in fact, fallen away into the water. The hymn-singers ceased their melodies, absorbed in anticipating what would happen next. At last, after many orders and goings to and fro, the engines started again, this time, of course, the starboard paddle, deeply immersed, moved by itself. We progressed with infinite slowness, and in a most peculiar manner, but we did progress, and that was the main thing. The passengers cheered heartily.

We appeared to go in curves, but each curve brought us nearer to Calais. As we approached that haven of refuge, it seemed as if every steamer and smack of Calais was coming out to meet us. The steamers whistled, the owners of smacks bawled and shouted. They desired to assist; for were we not disabled, and would not the English railway company pay well for help so gallantly rendered? Our captain, however, made no sign, and, like a wounded, sullen animal, from whom its companions timidly keep a respectful distance, we at length entered Calais harbor, and by dint of much seamanship and polyglottic swearing brought up safely at the quay.

Then it was that one fully perceived, with a feeling of shame, how night had magnified the seriousness of the adventure; how it had been nothing, after all; how it would not fill more than half a column in the newspapers; how the officers of the ship must have despised the excited foolishness of passengers who would not listen to reasonable, commonplace explanations.

The boat was evacuated in the twinkling of an eye. I have never seen a Channel steamer so quickly empty itself. It was as though the people were stricken by a sudden impulse to dash away from the poor craft at any cost. At the Customs, amid all the turmoil and bustle, I saw neither my young friend and his sister, nor my enemy, who so far had clung to me on my journey.

I learned that a train would start in about a quarter of an hour. I had some coffee and a roll at the buffet. While I was consuming that trifling refection the young man and his sister joined me. The girl was taciturn as before, but her brother talked cheerfully as he sipped chocolate; he told me that his name was Watts, and he introduced his sister. He had a pleasant but rather weak face, and as for his manner and bearing, I could not decide in my own mind whether he was a gentleman or a buyer from some London drapery warehouse on his way to the city of modes. He gave no information as to his profession or business, and as I had not even returned his confidence by revealing my name, this was not to be wondered at.

"Are you going on to Paris?" he said presently.

"Yes; and the sooner I get there the better I shall be pleased."

"Exactly," he smiled. "I am going, too. I have crossed the Channel many times, but I have never before had such an experience as last night's."

Then we began to compare notes of previous voyages, until a railway official entered the buffet with a raucous, "Voyageurs pour Paris, en voiture."

There was only one first-class carriage, and into this I immediately jumped, and secured a corner. Mr. Watts followed me, and took the other corner of the same seat. Miss Watts remained on the platform. It was a corridor carriage, and the corridor happened to be on the far side from the platform. Mr. Watts went out to explore the corridor. I arranged myself in my seat, placed the jewel-case by my side, and my mackintosh over my knees. Miss Watts stood idly in front of the carriage door, tapping the platform with her umbrella.

"You do not accompany your brother, then?" I ventured.

"No. I'm staying in Calais, where I have an—an engagement." She smiled plaintively at me.

Mr. Watts came back into the compartment, and, standing on the step, said good-by to his sister, and embraced her. She kissed him affectionately. Then, having closed the carriage door, he stolidly resumed his seat, which was on the other side away from the door. We had the compartment to ourselves.

"A nice girl," I reflected.

The train whistled, and a porter ran along to put the catches on all the doors.

"Good-by; we're off," I said to Miss Watts.

"Monsieur," she said, and her face seemed to flush in the cold morning light,—"monsieur." Was she, then, French, to address me like that?

She made a gesture as if she would say something to me of importance, and I put my head out of the window.

"May I ask you to keep an eye on my brother?" she whispered.

"In what way?" I asked, somewhat astonished.

The train began to move, and she walked to keep level with me.

"Do not let him drink at any of the railway buffets on the journey; he will be met at the Gare du Nord. He is addicted—"

"But how can I stop him if he wants to—"

She had an appealing look, and she was running now to keep pace with the train.

"Ah, do what you can, sir. I ask it as a favor. Pardon the request from a perfect